The Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was arranged for a full orchestra by Maurice Ravel, a famous French musician and composer in his own right. This adaptation is a cornerstone of orchestral repertoire.
Part of what makes Pictures at an Exhibition such an evocative masterpiece is the multidisciplinary story of the music. Each movement in Pictures is based on Victor Hartmann’s paintings, who is a Russian architect and painter, as well as a friend of Mussorgsky. While most of these paintings have been lost, the surviving ones (pictured below), may assist in visualizing these movements.
Promenade: “Promenade” means “to walk” in French, and viewers can imagine walking through formidable marble columns into a grand museum filled with Hartmann’s work. There’s a regal ambiance, with a sweeping trumpet solo before the full orchestra comes in. The promenade is booming and sparkling, leaving the audience speculating for what’s yet to come.
Gnomus (1): Since Gnomus is meant to imitate a gnome with uneven legs, the pace is unrelenting, surprising, and even slightly off putting. In Gnomus, the strings maintain a rapid pace, seemingly racing to finish the piece.
Tuileries: The Tuileries garden in France was a popular place for nobility to bring their children. With its music replicating the feeling of running as a child, Tuileries depicts a game of tag among these children as it passes around the wind section before concluding with an upward scale.
Bydlo (Cattle): “Bydlo” is the Polish word for “cattle,” and this piece depicts an oxen drawn peasant wagon. Featuring the famous tuba solo , Bydlo slowly tromps towards us as the piece progresses. As it reaches the climax, the entire orchestra joins in this jubilant march, before itslowly dwindles down as the oxcart passes and goes off into the distance.
Promenade IV: For the first time, Pictures transitions into a minor key, repeating the theme but in a dissonant, disturbing register; we are mourning Hartmann in this short piece.
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks (2): Hartmann sketched Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks while designing costumes for the Russian Imperial Ballet School. This piece is incredibly playful, as the flutes lead a light theme, and the string section plucks the string up the scales, a technique known as pizzicato. At the end, the flute comes in with a shrill note, disrupting the melody. Here, the children are finished chasing each other and one has tagged the other while sticking their tongue out.
Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuÿle (3): This piece illustrates a wealthy and impoverished Jewish person. The first is Samuel Goldenberg, who is rich. To reflect the painting, the string section luxuriates and plays with authority while the trumpet solo conflicts with it.
Limoges: Limoges is meant to depict a busy marketplace,so the piece features a lively melody that alternates between the violin and french horn. The discourse continues, and the orchestra rushes into a sweeping coda, and we plunge straight into the Catacombs.
Catacombs (4): Brass dominates the piece as it descends deeper into the skull-ridden catacombs of Paris. Catacombs depict people venturing deep into these underground tunnels with only a small lamp, which illuminates the dead bodies.
Baba-Yaga- The Hut on Fowl's Legs (5): In Russian fairy tales, Baba -Yaga is a witch who lives in a chicken-legged hut. The piece is unstable through the brass section, while the strings frequently chime in with outbursts of terror as Baba Yaga chases the audience through the forest.
The Grand Gate of Kiev (6): This triumphant end, reflecting Hartmann’s design for an architecture contest, incorporates the whole orchestra to celebrate Hartmann and his years of work.
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